Exciting Things

So I have been living in Canada for about seven (seven?!) months. And in that time, I have not been allowed to work. Which has given me a lot of time to write. And I have completed three pieces: a piano solo and two choral pieces.

Festival Dance

This is a fun, light-hearted piano solo in 7/8 time. I wrote it for my kid brother who loves weird time signatures. As its name implies, it is a fast dance with heavy chords in the left hand and light flourishes in the right. And it is so much fun to play!

Wade in the Water

I think I have already mentioned this piece several times. But it is a choral arrangement of the African spiritual for unaccompanied SATB and body percussion. I wanted to set the spiritual but because it is such a famous and oft-performed one, I needed something different. A schtick. And thus, the body percussion section was born. Because the choir needs their hands (and feet) to perform this piece, it is best performed memorized.

O Come!

O Come! is a choral arrangement of five traditional Christmas hymns set to an original piano accompaniment. What a joy this was to write! The hymns used are as follows:

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

Sing We Now of Christmas

What Child is This

Carol of the Bells

I have wanted to write this piece for many, many years because Christmas is such an important holiday in my family. And this came together quite nicely. The biggest (and most exciting) news from all of this is that the Bytown Voices, a community choir I joined in Ottawa, is going to read this piece in the upcoming season!

This amazing feeling is how I know I’m a composer. For information on purchasing these (or other) scores, please see the Scores page on this website!